Twelfth Night Or What You Will
by Silvanne
Summary: Marshall plans a Christmas surprise for Mary.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas challenge. Title stolen shamelessly from Shakespeare because I thought I had the 12th day of the challenge. Turns out I had the 11th day. (Perhaps I can get Shakepseare to change the name of his play...). Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe for encouragement and blowing the all clear. Dedicated to my own Marshall, the man who lets me cry without fear, and understands how wafer-thin my own veneer is.

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><p>Part 1<p>

He surveyed the room, content. The roast was keeping warm in the oven, the sparse decorations were in place, and Mitch Miller played softly in the background. He was finished just in time, he thought, hearing her car door slam shut from out in the driveway. He withdrew to the darkened kitchen, his eyes on the front door.

He knew this was all a risk, but sometimes risks, even with Mary, paid off.

Mary knew something was different…wrong…before she even opened the front door. She hadn't left her bathroom or living room light on when she left that morning for a day at the office doing backlogged paperwork. Quietly, she pulled her gun and slid the key into the lock in the same fluid motion, nudging the door open with her foot.

She entered, swinging slightly to scan the room, her gun leading the way, her gaze noting but not stopping on the inconsistencies: her CD player on, her mantle less cluttered and sporting a couple of red-and-green-striped stockings, wood for a fire laid but not lit in the fireplace below, and a pecan pie in the middle of the dining room table which was set for two.

"I think you can put the gun down, Mare," her partner called from the kitchen, watching her from the shadows. He stepped into the warm light of the dining room, despite Mary having aimed herself (and her gun) toward the voice in the dark. He put his hands up in mock defensiveness. "You wouldn't go so far as to shoot Santa, would you?" he asked her, grinning.

"If he breaks into my house, instead of staying at the mall to lure children in so their parents will buy more crap, I might consider it," she responded, holstering her gun. "What the hell have you done to my house?"

"What the hell are _you_ doing going into a house where you think someone might be lying in wait for you _without_ calling me for backup?" he retorted, raising an eyebrow at her. If this was going to work, he needed her off-balance.

"It's my house," she began lamely, knowing that she'd promised him six ways to Sunday to act smarter about her safety, especially in the last few months, and that her half-assed defense didn't hold a drop of water. "Besides…" she trailed off and took a deep breath.

She looked past him into the darkness of the kitchen. "Dear, sweet Jesus…" she said, looking back at him. "Is that the smell of pot roast?"

He took a step back and flipped on the light, illuminating a couple of saucepans on the stove top. With an elaborate flourish, he opened the oven, slipped a potholder on his right hand, and snagged the baking dish out of the oven. He deposited it on the counter, and informed her, "No…I offer you instead a proper roast beast."

Mary's weakness for food undid her, at least temporarily, and so he was able to get their small feast laid out on the table, the candles lit, the sparkling cider poured, and Mary into her seat without argument.

He gave her some time to load up her plate and start tucking away the meat, mashers, and asparagus. But it also gave her time to put the things he had done to and at her place together with the significance of the date. Momentarily sated, she sat back and looked at him.

"So not that I don't appreciate all this," she began, gesturing to the candlelit table, "But you know how I feel about _this_…" she ran an accusing fingertip over the plastic holly wrapped around the pillar candle closest to her. Her eyes narrowed a little as she looked up at him. "Besides, what are you doing here at all? Aren't you supposed to be under the mistletoe somewhere with the cheerleader?"

The truth was, aside from the fact that it had guaranteed an empty (and, thus, quiet office), Mary had forgotten that it was Christmas Day. Once at her desk, the paperwork had taken all of her attention, and she forgot everything else except the promise of peace and the tamales one of her witnesses had made for her, all waiting at home. As much as she'd looked forward to them, Marshall's roast had been unbelievably good, and she now had the tamales to enjoy tomorrow night. Still, he had gone too far with the decorations, and she wasn't going to let it pass entirely.

"Abby's celebrating with her family."

"Then why aren't you with her?" Mary couldn't help pressing, though she knew she shouldn't. Not only was it getting into dangerous territory for her emotionally, but she could see the shadow that had briefly passed over her partner's expression when she mentioned his girlfriend. And this time it was more than his frustration with her borderline cattiness about the woman he was currently apartment-shopping with.

"Because I wanted to be here," he responded in a tone that she had long ago learned meant he was not letting her go any further down this road for the moment. He stood up, and began clearing the table, moving into the kitchen. She grabbed the glasses and followed him into the other room. With only a couple of weeks to go in her pregnancy, she struggled to negotiate her way past the table and chairs, but finally managed to get through and placed the glasses on the counter.

"You shouldn't be here. You should be with your girlfriend." She stood next to him as he rinsed dishes, waiting, her arms crossed, just looking at him. But Marshall had played this game too many times with her, and knew she was waiting for him to give her an opening so she could escalate things to the point where he'd leave and she could retire back into her own little world.

Tonight, he was not having it.

"If you can just pass me that pot," he said, as though oblivious to her growing impatience, "I can get the dishwasher loaded and we can start the movie. Unless you'd like to see what's in your stocking first…" He turned toward the dishwasher, partly to put the wine glasses in, but more to hide his smirk. Hook...line…

"My stocking?" she said, her usual Scrooge-like attitude suddenly at war with her even more usual avarice.

Sinker…

He closed and started the dishwasher, then turned the grin on her now. "Santa might have left a treat or two in there for you," he informed her, moving around her on his way to the fireplace. Once there, he faced her again, absentmindedly flicking one of the stockings with his finger, setting it swinging gently. "Some say that Christmas stockings started out as a Norse tradition. Children would leave their boots by the chimney, filled with carrots and straw for Odin's horse, Sleipnir, and according to the legend, Odin would repay their kindness by leaving small gifts and candy in…"

Mary wasn't about to give in without a fight. "Seriously? You think the thought of shoes used as slop containers is going to entice me into joining in your little reindeer games?"

Marshall shrugged, as though conceding the point. "Fine, movie it is."

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><p>Mary had gone quiet, and Marshall, spread out on the right side of the sofa they shared, was watching her out of the corner of his eye. She had initially balked at watching a teen movie, and then, as <em>Juno<em> began to play out, had eyed him with suspicion. Luckily, the main character appealed to his partner (for obviously narcissistic reasons, since both women shared a wafer-thin toughness and acerbic charm) and she had let go of her immediate rejection of the subject matter and settled into her usual MST3K-like movie mode, commenting on any and everything. Marshall never saw a movie for the first time with his partner. It wasn't conducive to following a plotline, and he loved good narrative.

But once Juno's water broke, the commentary had slowed to a trickle and then died. When Juno's father sat stroking her hair, assuring her that she'd be back, giving birth on her own terms, he heard the catch in his partner's breathing and saw the tears starting to form in her eyes. His hand reached over to slip into hers and gently squeezed, silently reminding her that he was there.

At first, there was no response, but when Paulie joined Juno on her hospital bed, Mary's tears fell along with Juno's, and her hand tightened around his. He used her grip to pull her towards him just the tiniest bit. Without a word on either side, she understood his invitation, the one that was always there, but which he sometimes extended in more conscious but still subtle ways. She leaned towards him, resting her head on his shoulder. To him, her slight acquiescence might as well have been a klaxon, and he turned to wrap his arms around her, pulling her close and giving her the permission she was, in her own way, asking for.

The quiet tears quickly became a torrent of sobbing—eight months of bottled-up fear, frustration, and heartache, all let loose and currently soaking his sweater. He leaned over and wrapped his right arm around her legs and lifted them, turning her until they draped across his lap, pulling her closer, cradling her against him and rocking her gently.

If not for the fact that his own heart was breaking with every tear she shed, he might have called it a Christmas miracle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes:** Thanks for the lovely reviews, they are motivating. And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe for encouragement and my hubby, who has spent the last five years teaching me (or rather, giving me the opportunity to figure out) the things Mary desperately needs to learn.

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><p>Part 2<p>

He quickly lost track of how long he sat there, holding her with one arm, stroking her hair with the other, as it all poured out: how her body had betrayed her, how people treated her like she was made of glass, how she struggled to put her shoes on every morning, how stupid she was to have had unprotected sex—or any kind of sex—with Mark, how worried she was that she'd make the right choice. No self-recrimination or criticism of the unjustness of the universe went unuttered. He didn't waste time arguing or even forming coherent responses. This wasn't about her needing reassurance about her choices or answers to her problems. So instead, he murmured wordlessly and soothingly into her hair, just letting her get it all out. He had no idea how anyone could have held out so long under the pressure she was under.

He also tried very hard to stifle that part of him who loved and treasured such moments—times which left him torn between the pain of knowing she hurt and the joy he felt in being the only one she would and could turn to. Everyone else knew only part of Mary—the part that scared off former partners, bosses, friends, and lovers. But there was a piece of her that she shared only with him, that belonged exclusively to him, and it was that which allowed him to stay. It was a lifeline to him, and he hated himself for cherishing those moments when her pain made her turn to him.

Loving Mary was a very special kind of hell.

The sobs were starting to fade, deep shuddering breaths taking their place, as she tried to recover, her now-stuffed sinuses making it hard to get oxygen. He blindly reached behind him to grab tissues from the box on the end table. He held the first up to her nose and firmly told her, "Blow." She complied as meekly as any child, and he cleaned her up efficiently, one arm still wrapped around her, grimacing about the accuracy of the comparison.

Mary in pain _was_ a child to a great extent. The one left behind when her father walked out the door. The one she herself had had to forsake when his departure left her with an alcoholic mother and infant sister to care for. But as Finkle had one day pointed out to him, no one was capable of that kind of a clean break; no one went from child to adult in a day. Instead, that child remained deep inside, uncared for, un-nurtured, abandoned even by its self. Unless reclaimed, it never matured, it never learned that it was still deserving of love, and the adult was never free of the pain of those lost years.

Tonight was a small step in reclaiming that child.

Divined from scattered bits and pieces littering the past few years, Marshall knew what Christmas had been like for Mary, even before her eighth birthday. Some years, there was money for a tree and presents; some years, the day passed without mention. Every year, her mother ended the day as she did many others—drunk and hysterical. Once her father had left, Mary did what she could to provide some semblance of a holiday for her sister, often waiting until two or three days after Christmas, when people began putting their discarded trees, still bright with patches of tinsel, out on the street for the garbage men. She'd find the greenest she could, drag it back to their home in the early-morning light, and place the small gifts she'd managed to piece together over the last few weeks under it before going in to wake Brandi up to inform her that Santa had come.

Wrapped in colorful Sunday funnies, the gifts could delight only a tot like Brandi: a set of mismatched blocks, culled from garage sales where people sometimes took pity on Mary and her pennies and nickels; an old Fischer Price toy record player the preschool around the corner had tossed out in their annual purge; a pretty (but slightly stained and too-large) party dress she'd fished out of a Salvation Army dropbox when she caught sight of red velveteen and sequins hanging out of the overstuffed depository; a clay bowl she'd made and painted in bright colors in art class.

Brandi would rip the makeshift packages open and laugh and hug each gift to her chest, her smile shining on Mary and giving her back a little of the warmth that had once been hers. They'd bundle up and go for a walk, singing whatever Christmas carols Mary could remember and Brandi had the patience to learn, sometimes using the remnants of cardboard boxes, ones that used to hold the Big Wheels and Sit-N-Spins other children were now enjoying inside the homes they passed, as makeshift sleds. When they returned to the house, invariably their mother was up and in full hangover. Mary would hustle her baby sister into whatever safe place their home offered so she could play with her new acquisitions while her big sister spent the afternoon running interference so that Brandi could enjoy her gifts for a while in peace. Usually the things she was able to procure for her sister weren't worth pawning, but there had been exceptions.

Brandi was 7 before she returned from school one December afternoon to inform her sister that Christmas fell on the 25th, not the 27th. Christmases dwindled after that. The peppermint pie he received every year was as close as Mary came to celebrating the holiday as an adult. Another piece that was his alone.

He glanced down at her still-tear-stained face, and saw the beginning of her withdrawal, pulling back as she always did after such emotional displays. But he wanted to hold on just a bit longer. He was never entirely sure whether the way she closed down afterwards was shame at having lost control of herself or anger at having again done it again in front of her partner. Probably both. He wished she would let herself understand that he would never hold either against her.

"It's okay," he whispered. He let her interpret that as she would, letting the blanket acceptance lie there. "Besides, I have just the thing…" He hated letting go of her, and didn't want her to feel him moving too far away, so he pulled her up after him as he crossed to the fireplace. He removed the more stuffed of the two stockings and pulled her down, slowly but playfully, onto the carpet, kneeling on one knee and depositing the offending hosiery in her lap.

She opened her mouth to protest, to push the stocking back at him, when her eyes lit on the red saran-wrapped treats poking out of the top of it. "Oh, holy Christ, Marshall..." she practically moaned, "Please tell me that those are what I think they are."

He turned away from her and struck a long match against rough surface of the hearth, wishing to God that his partner wouldn't make such vaguely erotic sounds about food. It wasn't good for his sanity, and she did it so regularly that he had a set of images in his head—dead puppies, his high school dissection of a pig, etc—at the ready to ward off any unintended side effects.

"If you think they're a half dozen of Sharon's double-chocolate-chip cookies," he replied, touching the match to the kindling and then blowing it out once the fire caught, "then you'd be absolutely right."

The sound that erupted from her was even worse than the first, and he had to take a deep breath before turning around to face her again. What greeted him was like a little slice of heaven: his partner sat there, her legs crossed, beaming brightly, and using one hand to shovel half a cookie into her mouth while the other began to paw through the stocking cradled in her lap. The sight made him so happy, his heart ached just a little, as though it was suddenly just one size too big for his chest, and he grabbed his stocking and rocked back on his heels, pretending to look through his own.

In reality, his eyes were on Mary the whole time.

Mary retrieved a tiny gift wrapped in silver paper from her stocking. Biting into her cookie enough to hold it firmly in her mouth to free up both hands, she ripped the bow off and began shredding the paper. In less than three seconds, she was left holding an R2-D2 decorated memory stick. She looked up at him, eyebrow cocked, mumbling around her cookie.

He tried not to laugh as she almost choked, attempting to give him crap about the Star Wars-related gift without actually taking the cookie out of her mouth. "Ah, padawan," he began, and almost lost it again as this renewed her cookie-plugged outrage, "that is a small but very useful bit of data you have on there. Templates for much of our paperwork, pre-filled out with the generic information. Just open it up, resave it under another file name, and half the work is done for you."

Her annoyance melted, much as the chocolate chip caught in the corner of her mouth was doing. Her expression softened, and she mumbled heartfelt thanks at him. He could stand it no longer and reached over to grasp the cookie. "Bite," he told her. She did, taking a huge hunk out of the treat, and not bothering to chew before expressing her gratitude.

"Vith ith gweat!" she got out before he mimed closing his mouth and chewing at her. She began to chew furiously, trying to clear her mouth to tell him how much she appreciated the gift. It really was thoughtful of him, she had quickly realized. She_ loathed_ paperwork and had spent all day doing only that. The idea of having such a shortcut…that he had gone through who knew how many documents to create templates to spare her some of that, she could just kiss him right now in her joy.

The thought raised, again, a red flag for her, not to mention that she knew her mouth must be covered in chocolate at this point. But he cut her off, reaching over to place the remainder of the cookie back in her mouth.

"Finish this, before it melts everywhere." His eyes were dancing, and she knew he got how touched she was by his thoughtfulness. He always just "got" so much about her, regardless of whether it passed her lips or not. It was part of what allowed them to maintain the delicate and dangerous balance they had worked out over the years. She knew people thought she was an idiot about matters of the heart especially, but she saw that Marshall loved her, maybe even had been in love with her at one point. Part of her hoped that he given up on her and was now in love with his girlfriend, but she suspected, sometimes secretly and contrarily hoped, that he had not and was not.

It was completely unfair of her. She had long ago decided that she could never be so cruel to Marshall as to let herself return his feelings, and it was that which had allowed her to squelch her attraction to him as a man…most of the time. He wasn't her physical type, but he had a way about him that was far more appealing than any hard-bodied cowboy could ever be. Dangerous, fiercely loyal and protective, her partner sometimes attracted a curious and longing gaze from her; she'd catch herself staring at him and wondering, what if…

But the truth was that Raph had been her longest romantic relationship to date, and Marshall was a man who would not settle for something short-term and as sordid as her liaisons tended to be. Nor did she want to ever see the look on his face that would come when it ended, as things always did with her. She'd seen previews of it at various times in their friendship…times when she could feel him reaching out a tentative verbal touch in her direction, trying to open the door, and she'd try, in turn, to slam it shut on him. The part of her that always tried to take the easy way—in or out—of relationships had long ago decided that these small rebuffs were better than the long, drawn-out, and ultimately excruciatingly painful discussion.

Of course, she hadn't counted on the sheer persistence of her lanky partner. Almost a decade later and he was still trying—like he had thrust his foot in the door to keep it open, just a crack. Always reminding her that he was right there, waiting, on the off-chance that she might lose her mind and finally rip the damned thing off the hinges. What she had meant to be a kind and face-saving strategy had instead turned into this intricate dance they now did. He had once shown her some movie about a girl who ordered about the family farmhand, who in return only responded, "As you wish," until the day she realized that what his words actually meant was "I love you." That relationship was nothing compared to that between her and Marshall. She and her partner had entire conversations buried under their discussion of the minutiae of the day, sparring wit, and pointed looks. "I love you" was only the beginning between them.

Marshall was so startled by the change in her expression, one that had softened into…he swallowed hard, against hope and desire, and had to fight his natural reaction when he felt himself leaning imperceptibly closer to her. He could read the farmboy's message right there in her eyes but knew it was foolish to do anything at all about it. It could not, she could not, be forced. He had thought he had almost entirely given up on the possibility that she might someday speak the words that he read so clearly on her face. But recently events had somehow rekindled his belief that another such miracle might be possible.

"You have chocolate smeared practically ear-to-ear, Mare," he informed her, doing what he always did and giving her an easy way out. Her tongue instinctively darted out and he wondered for the hundredth time if she knew or cared what effect its wandering over and around her lips had on a man. "And a stocking that's still three-quarters filled."

His reaction made it clear that he had more than an inkling of what two cents could have gotten him in that moment, but her Marshall took no advantage: he let her off the hook yet again. She silently thanked him and reached into her stocking for the next surprise.

The stockings had not even been his idea. He had told his mother that he'd be spending Christmas with Mary, and she had sent them both, evidently a surprise she'd already had in the works. She'd knitted both of them based on the pattern she used to make the stocking he knew would be hanging from her own mantle today, surrounded by the whole Mann clan—save him—who came home for the holidays. She had filled his to the top with the kind of small gifts that greeted him every year—new gloves, batteries for a variety of his gizmos, homemade candy, and the like—while Mary's was only half-full and labeled with a note instructing him to finish off the task before giving it to his partner.

Mary had now found the fudge his mom had made the two of them, and she nibbled at it as she watched him open a couple of his gifts. He pulled on his gloves and held them up for her to inspect, and she nodded approvingly at his mother's choice. When he nudged her, she reached in and found a pair for herself, tough-looking leather on the outside, but lined in cashmere. She grinned in delight and waved them over her head like she'd won the some contest. When he insisted, she tried them on and they fit her like a glo…they fit her perfectly. Her smile gained wattage—he knew trying to find gloves for her large but feminine hands was not easy and had caused her frustration. He had tricked her into making hand-print turkeys with one of their witnesses' kids the week before Thanksgiving and had snatched the paper when she wasn't looking; he took it to a local craftsman, who had made the gloves based on her drawing and Marshall's careful instructions.

Mary next pulled out, slightly hobbled by her refusal to take the gloves off and trying to cram her hand into the stocking, a brand-new bright green padlock. She'd lost her last key to the one on her gym locker, and although he'd managed to convince her not to shoot the offending hardware off so she could get to her gym shoes, she had found bolt-cutters and was now down one padlock. There had originally been two keys to the padlock both attached to it, but once she pulled it out of the stocking, he grabbed his own keyring from his pocket and dangled it in front of her. On it was a matching key—he was her backup even in this, she thought and didn't resist her urge to lean forward and hug him. He squeezed her back, her enjoyment easing some of his guilt over his reaction to her earlier meltdown, and let her go so she could continue to plunder her stocking.

The next thing that came out seemed innocuous enough, but for some reason, her expression darkened. She held up a small ceramic picture frame, and was looking back and forth between it and him. It was the type that held two small pictures. Granted, a frame of any kind was not a good gift for a woman who didn't really enjoy a lot of Kodak moments, but that wasn't enough to explain her transformation.

"From my mom," he said, not sure why it would make that much of a difference, but it was the first thing he could think of. This bit of information didn't seem to improve things—if anything, the line between her eyebrows only deepened. There were no pictures in it, so he couldn't imagine at first what had the power to so thoroughly alter her mood.

She stopped moving her gaze from the frame to her partner and back, and instead cast it around the room: to the remnants of dinner, the pie still sitting on the table, the cheery fire, the small pile of opened gifts, and then back to her handsome, sweet, solicitous partner, the man who had managed to bring a bit of Christmas back into her life. She just stared at him intensely for a moment.

"Marshall," she finally said, low and seriously, her eyes never wavering from his, "Why are you here? Why aren't you spending Christmas with Abby where you belong?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: **Thanks for the encouraging reviews, although I welcome criticism as well. Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas in July challenge. Title stolen shamelessly from Shakespeare because I thought I had the 12th day of the challenge. Turns out I had the 11th day. (Perhaps I can get Shakespeare to change the name of his play, although "Eleventh Day" sounds like something from a hobbit calendar). And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe and Tilley_Girl for encouragement and beta-badness. Dedicated to my own Marshall, the man who lets me cry without fear, and understands how wafer-thin my own veneer is.

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><p>Part 3<p>

Marshall shifted uncomfortably and looked away. "We already covered this, Mare." His voice was low and steady, but she could tell that he was forcing himself to keep it that way. "I told you that I wanted to be here."

"What's that supposed to mean, Marshall? You wanted to be here in Albuquerque for the holiday? You didn't want spend it with her family?" She leaned forward, and her movement made him shift his gaze back to her. He could see the wash of rising emotion in her green eyes. "Or you just felt it was your duty to spend a holiday I don't even like with your knocked-up, waddling, and pathetically single partner?" She waved an accusing finger at him. "You know where you're supposed to be, and it ain't here!"

He started to protest, but she was on a roll.

"Do you know what this frame is?" she demanded, her tone starting to rise. "This is a frame for a couple. One…" she stabbed a finger at the first empty slot in the frame, then to the other. "Two." She was now glaring at him. "Two people…together. A couple. You're part of a couple now. There are certain days that couples spend together. And this would be one of them." She snorted derisively and leaned back against the coffee table. "I can't believe _I'm_ having to tell _you_ this."

He was probably not going to be able to get out of this unscathed, he now realized. He wondered how little of the truth she'd let him get away with telling her. "You've been part of a couple before, Mare, and you should know better than most people that things don't always work out that way. I seem to remember that the last Christmas you were engaged to Raph, you actually spent the day on a stake-out with me, capped off with cold coffee and sandwiches from the vending machine while we did paperwork."

"That was work, Marshall, and you know it!"

"Really?" He pulled back, tilted his head down, his eyes dark. "Strange how I don't remember you exactly rushing to get home, either." Damn it, he thought, immediately berating himself for taking the cheap shot.

"Maybe that's because I knew that wasn't the couple I was supposed to be in!"

The statement hung there in the air, and it was clear to both of them that they'd be hard-pressed to decide which one of them was more surprised by Mary's admission. The door had just opened the tiniest bit too much for either of them at that moment.

Marshall knew what he should say…how he could twist what Mary really meant into just a general statement about her incompatibility with her ex-boyfriend. As always in this matter, his need to give Mary what she seemed to want warred with his desire to simply unburden himself and let her decide both their fates. He was sorely tempted now for the first time in a long time to do just that. But he knew it would be unfair, and had long experience in resisting that temptation. The truth was, it was really never a matter of willpower or fear of rejection that stopped him, that had kept him waiting for her all these years.

The truth was…well, it wasn't very pretty. And as sensitive as Mary could be, he didn't know how to say it to her without it sounding like a kind of damnation. Which it wasn't. It could have been a blessing on both of them, but instead, it had threatened to doom them both to unhappiness.

Because the truth was that there was no one for Mary but him.

Not ego or delusion on his part; he knew he could be a good boyfriend based on past experience, but that wasn't the point. And it wasn't that Mary wasn't beautiful, sharp, athletic, funny—so much of what most guys might say they were looking for in a woman—she was. But there were so many other things about her that basically made it impossible for her to find happiness with anyone else.

A marshal's life wasn't an easy one; the danger, travel, and long but unpredictable hours made it a tough job. But for people like Mary and himself, it was a calling: it was, in the simplest terms, who they were; there was no other life for them. Living with someone so already married to such a profession was not for the faint of heart. He'd seen the toll it had taken on his mother over the years; she'd managed to keep their home running for his entire childhood and beyond somehow despite his father's frequent absences, but there had been a lot of tears. It was not a life that most people, and (if he was honest about his sex) certainly not most men, would be eager to sign up for, whatever Mary's charms.

But even that was not the biggest obstacle. The biggest deterrent to her romantic happiness was Mary herself.

Mary, or at least the Mary that most people knew, wasn't all that easy to love. Angry, short-tempered, cynical, impatient, sarcastic—she was an acquired taste, if anything. The problem was, she drove most people off before they could discover what lay just under the surface. Her loyalty and respect, once earned, were iron-clad. Her dedication, persistence, and strength were unparalleled. But those were not generally qualities that inspired intimacy of a romantic sort. And the kinds of qualities which did, the ones that tied him to her, were buried even deeper.

Still, even that was not the heart of the matter. What made him her only choice was the fact that she had already chosen him, years ago.

People often gave him both too little and too much credit for the relationship he had with her. Those who observed from a distance saw him as the often-abused and too-tolerant partner to Mary's shrewishness; more than once, he'd been told that it was unbelievable that anyone could stand to partner with her at all, so he must be some kind of masochist. Those who knew them a bit better believed that he had, in fact, found a way to tame the beast that was Mary; Stan certainly felt that Marshall had, after years, worn the blonde marshal down to the point where she allowed him to watch over her and let him pull her back when she went too far.

The one person that no one gave any credit to was Mary herself. Yes, she could be difficult, and yes, those first months had been a struggle. But it wasn't his ability to withstand her bitterness and always-present annoyance that they should have credited. What he had done was simply to observe and not let her run him off; he had simply waited.

He had once described himself as the keeper of an exotic creature in reference to Mary. And it had been apt. But before he had become her keeper, he had had to make contact. Those months, maybe even the first couple of years, had reminded him of something his mother had taught him. As a child, their rural home was routinely visited by deer, rabbits, and other small animals. Like most children, his first instinct was to run after them, to catch up to them and pet them. After a particularly long chase (resulting in two skinned knees and a bloody nose), his mother had told him that she knew how to get up close to the animals that fascinated him. The next time she saw one, she took six-year-old Marshall out and sat down in the grass, pulling him into her lap and wrapping her arms around him.

At first he tried to argue that this was no way to catch a bunny, but she shushed him and he never, even now, argued with his mom. So they sat there, quietly, waiting. It didn't take long for the rabbit she had spotted to begin to approach, though at first it didn't look like it from his vantage point. First, it hopped a dozen yards to the left of them, and then it moved several bounces away from them. But over the course of what seemed like an eternity to him, it moved to within a scant two or three feet of them, eyeing and sniffing them curiously. When his mother finally spoke, it was just above a whisper.

"See, Marshall? It wants to know about us too. But it's afraid, and it has reason to be afraid, with all the coyotes, snakes, and little boys out to get it. Until you show it that it has nothing to fear from you, it will always run away."

That lesson was his only real secret when it came to Mary. It was not difficult to understand that she too had reason to fear, and that chasing after her, trying to force her into allowing him to get close to her, was precisely the wrong way to go about it. Because, as with the rabbit, he was not the one who could decide that she was safe enough to share the same space with him. Mary was the one who had to wrestle with her fear and doubt, and eventually make the decision to risk everything by letting herself get just a touch closer.

She was the one who had done something extraordinary. All he had done was wait.

But what he had later come to realize was that, once she had taken that step, once she had decided to let him in, she was done. For the first time in her life, she believed that she had trusted the right person. And it was a risk that he knew, somehow, that she would never take again, as though she was unwilling to tempt fate once it had finally blessed her. He was it—all she really wanted or needed for emotional support.

In the end, it was that which had doomed her relationship with Raph. While she had agreed to marry him, that decision seemed birthed out of her belief that that's what was expected—you date a guy, he doesn't screw you over, you meet his family, he moves in, you marry him. But it was clear, even to Raph in the end, where Mary had placed all her trust and her heart: in the hands of her partner. They were his and his alone. She'd made it clear over the years, in all her interactions with the rest of humanity; they were interesting, certainly, but simply not worth the risk. Marshall was her stalwart; he was the one.

Unfortunately for both of them, the coyotes and cowboys had long ago led her to divorce sex from caring and love from romance. It was how she gave her body, but not herself, to other men. And still managed to be genuinely surprised when she saw the hurt in his eyes.

Hurt that had finally led him to the biggest mistake of his life. But, taking a deep breath, he decided not to compound it.

"And you were right, Mare. He wasn't the one for you." He gestured at the frame. "Take it as a sign that my mother, who has never been wrong about anything but my eventual profession, knows that you'll discover the right person to fill that second spot."

"I think that's about as likely as you giving up the cowboy boots," she replied, and then cocked her head to the left and narrowed her eyes at him. "But that still doesn't explain the fact that you're here and not with Little Miss Congeniality. Come on, Marshall…Spill!"

He sighed. She was not going to give up, not now. He tried to appease her. "I've already told you the truth, Mary. I wanted to be here. I wanted to spend Christmas with you." He ran a hand through his hair, and soldiered on, not able to look at her for the moment. "I'd been planning this surprise for a little while, had even told my mom about it, which was why she sent the stockings for us. I had thought that Abby and I could spend the morning together, and then we'd come over to make merry with you. I know you don't like celebrating Christmas, but I told her that, since I don't go home for the holiday, it seemed like I should be spending it with what family I had here."

Mary waited, nodding at him, prompting him to continue.

"She wasn't…comfortable…with that idea."

"And you were surprised? Come on, Marshall, we can barely stand to be in the same _city_, let alone the same _room_. The two of us together on a major holiday…that's the kind of thing that leads to crazed 911 calls and broken windows."

She paused, her forehead crinkling a bit. Oh, damn, she thought.

"Marshall, is that why she's with her family and you're here? Because she didn't want to come over, and you insisted on hanging out with your Grinch of a partner?" He could see the anger build. "Damn it, Marshall, you do not have to spend all your time taking care of me, especially when I don't want to be taken care of in the first place. And especially on today of all days!" She wasn't just angry though, he recognized; she was genuinely upset at damage she somehow thought she had caused. "Isn't it enough that my personal life is a continuous train wreck? Why join me on this particular crazy train?" She started struggling to get up, and if circumstances were different, he might have laughed at her rocking back and forth trying to get some kind of purchase.

But instead, he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, firmly pulling her back down into place. He rolled up onto both knees in front of her, took her by the shoulders, and shook her sharply but not hard. She stilled her thrashing and was forced to look up at him. Lowering his head and leaning in, their eyes about 8 inches apart, he spoke slowly and in a voice generally not to be argued with.

"Mare, this…is…not…your…fault." She started to answer, but he cut her off ruthlessly. "No, this is not your fault. It's mine. God…it's all mine…" His voice caught. Overwhelmed by the seriousness of his mistake, he couldn't help himself. He pulled her closer and rested his forehead against hers as though it was too heavy for him to support any longer, silently begging her to reciprocate, if only for a moment, the comfort he had always given her.

His first tear fell on her cheek.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes: **Thanks for the encouraging reviews, although I welcome criticism as well. Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas in July challenge. And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Language is a bit spicier in this part. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe and Tilley_Girl for encouragement and beta-badness. Dedicated to my Marshall, the man who understands me better than I do and is a bit of a badass when the moment is right.

* * *

><p>Part 4<p>

She didn't know what to do. Sure, she understood the rudiments of how to console someone. It involved hugging them, a slight open-palmed thumping on the back, and the words "There, there. It'll be all right." She had the routine down from handling a long line of weepy witnesses. But this was different. This was Marshall. She froze.

But she did not pull away.

If he had been any less desperate at that moment, he never would have chanced it. The safeguards he had spent years building would have protected them both. He had wanted her before…longed for her. But now he _needed_ her, as she had needed him earlier, and as with her, there simply was no one else who could give him what he had to have at that moment. So he guided her.

He shifted slightly, moving so that her body sat nestled between his thighs. His arms pulled her tighter to him, slipping his hands down her shoulders to take her hands in his and moving them about his neck. "Please, Mary," he whispered to her. His breath played off her lips, wordlessly pleading with her to forgive him for stepping over their negotiated line, just this once.

Mary was startled at first to find her arms wrapped around him, but the raw need in his voice had made her hurt along with him, and her arms tightened about him instinctively, some untouched part of her stirring. She pulled him closer, one hand wrapping around the back of his head and guiding it down into the crook of her neck. She didn't know what was wrong, what he had done, but she knew that she could forgive him anything at that moment if it would just take away some of the pain radiating from him.

He had only cried like this once before, with concern for someone he cared for and self-loathing cutting him to the core. He struggled for some kind of control, but Mary's acceptance, her willingness to hold him close and let him go to pieces made it impossible. How could it be that, in this moment, the one when he deserved it least, she had given him what he had hoped for for so long? The sobs wracked him.

She was at a loss for words or action. She knew that, if the situation were reversed, he would know what to do, what to say. But she was not Marshall: she had never learned the right words. So she sat there, holding him and stroking the back of his neck, hoping that things would somehow magically right their world again.

Some part of him knew that this had to stop, that he could not do this to himself and to her on top of his current sins. He began to pull away in the hopes that some distance, that removing himself from the sweetness of her embrace, would allow him to grapple his heart back into his own chest.

She felt him withdrawing from her, and she unconsciously held him tighter. He moved away from her a bit and reached to unwind her arms from around his neck, but somehow, he could not manage it. He ducked his head down, trying to slip out from under her arms, his desire to escape growing, but she held on and he lowered his head further and further in his effort to flee, twisting slightly as his chin came in contact with her belly. Then it happened. In his struggle, he had inadvertently pressed the side of his face against her, and in that instant, he heard it: the conjoined heartbeats of mother and child. He went still, mesmerized.

She didn't know what had happened, why he stopped struggling, but she now found herself in an even more alien place than before. Before she got knocked up, she knew that, for some reason, people were freakishly drawn to the massive swelling roundness of a pregnant woman's belly. Delia had tried to touch her stomach exactly once, cooing ridiculously while doing so. Mary's snarl had been enough to keep her from making contact, and word had quickly spread that, even pregnant, Mary was Mary, and thus off-limits. No one had so much as tried since then. But now Marshall was firmly pressed against her baby bulge, the tears still slowly rolling down his face as he reached his arms around her, pulling himself closer.

Marshall knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, he shouldn't be doing this. Knew that _he_, specifically, of all people, shouldn't be doing this. But that small internal voice was drowned out by the pounding heartbeats of the woman he loved and the child that should have been his. At first, he just wondered at the sound: one a sure, steady bass-line; the other, a lively staccato. He had read every book on pregnancy that he'd been able to get his hands on, starting even before Mary had brought herself to admit her condition to him (or herself). He understood the minutiae of the various processes that sustained this life within his partner's womb. But experiencing it, feeling it through his own skin, was something that even _his_ research skills could not have prepared him for. Lulled by the sound, he closed his eyes.

Mary looked down, mystified, at her partner, half cradled in her lap, slowly bringing his hand up to stroke the curve of her belly reverently.

She had waited, all these months, for Marshall to ask to feel the baby kick or some such other nonsense—it was precisely the kind of thing she knew he would want to do, and she had always wondered whether she would allow it. But he had never asked. Occasionally she had caught him looking over at her, at her belly, as though the request was just about to emerge, but inevitably, he would turn away the moment he became aware of her own gaze on him. He probably thought she'd call him a pervert about his supposed pregnancy fetish. He was probably right; he usually was when it came to her.

But now, looking down at him, taking a comfort from her body that she had no other idea how to provide him, she not only did not begrudge him this, she was happy that, for once, she could be a source of happiness and not frustration and heartache in his life. She leaned back against the chair behind her and relaxed, her hand stroking his hair in time with his own on her belly. It felt wrong that it felt so right.

This was how it was supposed to be, she guessed, taking in this tableau as though an outsider. Christmas dinner, a roaring fire, sweet treats, and a relaxed and expectant couple curled around each other, savoring the last few quiet moments before the birth of their child. It might as well have been a Norman Rockwell painting, both in how domestically perfect and utterly foreign it was to her. But despite that, she resolved that, as a Christmas gift to them both, she would keep her mouth shut, now and afterwards, ignore the part of her that rebelled against anything so sappy, and let him have this from her. She let herself go, and for the first time, closed her eyes and imagined a better world for the three of them.

But barely a minute later, without warning, Marshall bolted from her embrace, backing up on his hands and knees until he impacted against the wall opposite her hard enough to knock the wind out of himself. He knelt there, panting slightly, looking at her warily.

It _had_ been perfect, and he had let it happen. Pressed against Mary, listening to their heartbeats, he had let himself forget everything else. Who he was, who she was, and what the eventual fate of the child cradled between them would be. The smell of woodfire, holly, and Mary, combined with the candlelight, decorations, and this longed-for intimacy had finally done it—cracked his rebuilt armor. And hope had again crept inside.

Why shouldn't it be like this for them? he had thought, lying there. Why not a home and family and a life of love with her? Why not? he demanded of the universe.

And then he had remembered. Exactly who she was. Exactly who he was to her. Exactly what he had done to make himself unworthy.

Mary just stared at him in shock and concern, confused and inexplicably hurt by his sudden withdrawal. His hand went up to shield his brow, and she could tell he was struggling for some sort of control. But the darkness that had broken him was back.

"What, Marshall?" she said, for once trying not to slip into her usual exasperated tone. "What could you, of all people, have done that's this bad? You've never done anything to regret, let alone start the waterworks over."

He gathered himself enough to answer her from behind almost-clenched teeth. "You've never taken enough of an interest in my life to be able to know what I might regret, Mare," he said, anger at himself boiling over and spilling out onto her, making his self-loathing just that much worse.

But she knew who he was angry at and ignored the accusation. "Just tell me, Marshall. It can't be _that_ bad. You're damned near a saint. What did you do, forget to put the toilet seat down?"

He chuckled harshly. "Oh, no, Mary…hardly the saint. And the toilet seat was always put down." His tone took on an ironic tinge. "See, I'm good at the little things. I'm good at all the small touches: the flowers, the perfect words, the right gesture. It's the big things, the important things, that I seem to screw up."

"Oh, just out with it, already! What could you have possibly done? If you can't tell your partner, your _best friend_, for Christ's sake, then who are you going to tell?"

"I CAN'T TELL _YOU_!" he yelled at her for the first time she could remember. He stood up, turning around to look out the window, and went silent for just a moment. Then, with a roar of rage, he put his fist through that same window.

Somehow, despite her unwieldy condition, she was up and at his side in an instant, grabbing him by his uninjured arm and pulling him back away from the window. He jerked his arm away from her with a snarl and turned to go into the bedroom where he'd left his coat, desperate to get away.

Which gave Mary just enough time to make it to the front door before him, where she planted herself as the immovable object in the path of his irresistible force. He stopped a few feet short of her, eyes blazing, blood dripping down his right hand.

"Get out of my way, Mary," he growled at her.

But she knew she had the upper hand. Whatever skills her partner had, and however much anger he might be packing, she had absolute faith that he would not lay a hand on her, even to move her two feet to the left, especially in her current condition. So she crossed her arms across her chest and met his gaze.

"You're not getting out of here without telling me, Marshall, end of story. No bullshit now. No half-truths. All of it, _now_."

"You can't handle the truth," he laughed darkly, spitting a line from one of her favorite movies at her. "Stay safe behind the wall _I_ guard, Mary. It's what you do best."

It was so patently thin, the manipulation he was trying to use. He wanted her angry too, because it meant she'd want him gone. Of course, she saw through it, and quietly conceded the honesty of what he said. She had avoided the truth when it came to him…over and over. She had slammed that door every time he'd offered it to her. And he'd learned to keep certain things to himself, most of his life outside his work, in fact. But whatever this was was obviously killing him. She had to do _something._

He had rejected the first gift she'd decided to give him moments ago. But perhaps, after all these years, she had one other thing to give him-something he'd always wanted. There were so many reasons why she never had, but seeing him in this kind of pain was worse than the monsters that plagued her imagination. After everything he had done for her, everything he given over the years, it seemed like such a small thing to give. But it might be the one thing that would break her.

She closed the distance between them, grabbing a towel from the counter on the way. Wrapping it gently around his right hand, she brought it up between them, applying pressure and looking up at him.

He glared at her, his eyes steely blue, a color she had seen there primarily when they were making arrests or his adrenalin was otherwise up. She took a deep breath, knowing how risky what she was doing was, to both of them, and then quietly told him, "Marshall, seriously, you can tell me. All of it. I'm here for you. I know it may not always feel like it, but you're the most important person in this stupid, fucked-up world to me, and I can't take you keeping this from me. Just tell me."

She read it in his eyes first. The slightest hint of fragility in his defenses. She went in for the kill, leaning forward to rest her head against his left shoulder. "Please…" she whispered.

The "please," such a rare word from his partner, undid him. Despite everything, there was nothing he had ever been able to deny her when she used the word. And she was right. Considering it all, she deserved to know…because it meant never being able to go back and pretend he was as noble as she always believed he was. He wasn't worthy of such faith anymore. He nodded.

Mary pulled him back over to the sofa and examined his hand, letting him collect his thoughts. The cuts to his wrist would likely need a couple of stitches, but he'd managed to do more damage to the window than to himself. She tied the towel tightly around the wound, and sat back, waiting.

He sighed, knowing there was, really, no way out. "I broke her heart, Mary."

She had already guessed as much. Abby was nothing if not tenacious, and nothing less than a split or terrible fight would have allowed her to let Marshall out of her sight on Christmas Day. She nodded, and shrugged. "It happens, Marshall. As much as you may like the rom-coms for their happy endings, that's not how it works out in real life. Things happen. People change."

He shook his head emphatically. "No, Mare…I didn't just break up with her, and we didn't just fall out of love," he said bitterly, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. "It didn't just 'happen.' I broke her heart as surely and completely as though that were my goal all along."

"Come on, Marshall. It can't be that bad. What happened?"

He turned his head toward her, as if appraising her in some way. "Mary, nothing happened. That's the problem. _Nothing_ changed. But if you make me talk any more…" he looked away again, unable to take the rare compassion in her eyes.

She reached out and rubbed his back gently. "Marshall, I promise you…whatever it is, you can tell me."

He sighed heavily. "I should never have gotten involved with her…with anyone really. It was selfish and misguided, and I knew better. Deep down, I _knew_ it was wrong."

"Oh, please, Marshall. I saw how you were with her. You were the perfect boyfriend."

He pulled away, got up, and began pacing. "Yes, Mary, I'm aware that I looked the part. That's the problem. It was all an act…all of it."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I was so _fucking_ good, I completely fooled her. Fooled myself for a while. Fooled the whole damned world, including you."

_Not completely_, she thought, watching as he wore a path through her carpet. "I don't believe it. Why would you do that?"

He stopped in front of the fireplace, turning to grip the mantel hard, leaning down, his head between his elbows, gazing into the fire. This was the point of no return. "Mary…" he tried, the warning plain in his voice.

"Answer me, Marshall." She wasn't compromising.

He spit it out at the fire and her. "This, Mary…_this_ is why." He was rocking back and forth, his agitation obvious.

"I don't understand."

His laugh was more like a bark than a sound of amusement. "Liar." He stood back up and his long strides ate up the space between them, leaving him towering over her. "You've always understood. You've always known."

Shocked by his accusation, she just stared up at him, unable to form her worthless denial.

"You want me to stop _now_, though, don't you?" He glowered down at her, taunting.

She did. Desperately. But whatever the cost, this is what he needed from her. To be able to unburden himself completely. _Man up, Shannon_, she thought to herself.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Just say it, Marshall."

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><p>Sorry this one took me so long, but with a new house, a new job, a working vacation, and a bad sinus infection, things kinda got away from me. Promise the next one won't take so long. Again, reviews (even critical ones) will be cherished like autumn blossoms.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: **Okay, guys, **please, please, please** don't kill me. This next part still doesn't answer the whole Abby question but hopefully takes a small detour which you will find agreeable. Oh, and on that note, this part borders on the Mature (for language and ideas, really, not actions). Thanks for the encouraging reviews, although I welcome criticism as well. Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas in July challenge. And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe and Tilley_Girl for encouragement and beta-badness. Dedicated to my Marshall, the best partner a woman like me could ask for and the guy who wants you to know that he was absolutely the inspiration for this chapter (snerk).

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><p>Part 5<p>

As angry and, yes, scared as he was, he didn't want to believe it. _No_, he told himself. _She doesn't_ really _mean it. She _never_ does_.

But the look in her eyes and the set of her jaw said otherwise. _Fuck it_, he thought, _I've already screwed the whole thing up anyway_. There was nothing to salvage anymore and nothing to hope for. He might as well tell her. He'd likely never have another chance, and maybe there was some small redemption in at least coming clean.

But it didn't slake his anger, even if he knew it was misplaced.

"How many times, Mary? How many times have I tried to tell you? How many times have I seen it in your eyes, seen it register and then seen you wipe it all away like some kind of emotional Etch-A-Sketch?"

He reached down, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her up before him. "How many times?" he demanded.

She looked away. She didn't have an answer. All of those moments, all of the times she'd ignored or deflected or twisted what he'd said, what she knew he meant—there were so many of them, from the slightest hint in his tone over morning coffee to the day he'd actually come out and said the words at her engagement party.

He didn't know what he expected of her really. But it felt good on some level to finally make her face it, even if nothing could ever come of it.

"Anything. I would have given you anything…anything you wanted or needed, but the only thing you've ever wanted was my silence." He threw his head back and laughed, the acrimony in it cutting through her. "So I gave you that instead. Waiting…hoping…trying to prove myself to you every day…and living like a monk for most of it." He looked down again, his gaze hard, pulling her closer and lifting her onto the balls of her feet, her body tense.

"And what did you do? You mocked me for it."

Her eyes must have registered her objection, because he responded as though he heard her thoughts. "Oh, yes, Mare. I was too effete, too girly for any real woman to want, right? Not good enough for you, not good enough for anyone! Unable to satisfy any woman because you were so certain I couldn't satisfy _you_."

His eyes locked on hers, he wrapped one arm around her tightly, trapping her against him. The other hand snaked up her back and into her hair, firmly gripping and pulling slightly, forcing her head back just enough to intensify her impression of him looming over her. She was too stunned to respond, her heart beating hard against her ribcage and the sound of rushing blood in her ears making it impossible for her to think.

"And so you took the others—those _cowboys_—to bed, instead of me." He leaned down, his lips millimeters from hers. She opened her mouth to speak, but was unable to find any words as he pressed his lips to the corner of hers for a moment, and then slid, his breath skimming over her mouth lightly, to press a second half-kiss to the opposite corner. Her eyes closed unconsciously, and she whimpered faintly in apology and softly awakening need.

His mouth was on the move again, as he dipped to the curve of her throat, his voice a low purr that resonated through her body. "Ignoring the fact that I know more about you than any lover you've ever had. I know what you want, what you need, before you do." He nipped at the sensitive skin just under her jawline, holding her firmly as she jerked in response, an answering shiver running the length of her spine. "And trust me, sweet, stubborn Mary, if I took you into my bed, I'd make damned sure you couldn't remember your own name, let alone theirs."

She was losing a battle she hadn't been aware she was fighting, her body growing gradually softer against his, his fingers loose in her hair now that she seemed to have little will to resist him.

"Have you ever wondered, Mary?" he demanded in a low growl, his fingers sweeping aside her hair so that his lips found her ear. "What it would be like to fuck someone who actually loves you? Not some illusion of who you are, or what you think you should be, but the real you?" His hand firmly applied pressure at her temple and the back of her neck, tilting her head to the side, exposing her neck to him. His lips moved slowly down, his words punctuated by a trail of gentle kisses and nips. "Someone who picks up on every sigh, every moan, every whimper, who learns your body as well as I have your mind and moods and uses that knowledge to drive you into a frenzy of need that has you begging to cum, again and again?"

She cried out sharply as he sank his teeth into the flesh of her neck, the pain unexpected, brief, and quickly replaced by the pleasure of him sucking softly at that same spot, her sound of half-hearted outrage sliding into a low groan, the sensations overloading her already endangered sanity. "Someone who takes you over that edge and catches you again at the bottom, who holds you and touches you with a reverence, a passion, a _love_ that no amount of time can fade or undo?" He pulled back to look at her for a moment, his expression unreadable.

Again, she tried to find the words, but it was impossible. She knew she could not trust her voice, and even if she could, the truth was too dangerous to actually utter.

He smiled down at her, his mirth a mix of bitterness and predation. "You don't have to answer—because we both already know the answer, don't we? I've seen the looks, Mare…" His mouth again descended to play just short of hers. "I've seen you wonder what it would be like." She felt him grin against her lips, but his voice was laced with the same bitterness she'd seen in his eyes. "Let's put those doubts to rest, shall we?" And then his mouth was on hers.

It was hardly the first time she'd been kissed, but what Mary found herself on the receiving end of made all those others seem like shadows of the real thing. Nothing could have prepared her for the way Marshall's mouth alternately ravaged and made love to hers. After his lips pressed to hers, almost casually, both hands came up to wrap around the back of her neck, his thumbs settling just below her lips. His tongue darted out just enough to quickly slide along the curve of her bottom lip before his thumbs applied slight pressure downward, her mouth opening to him without her leave—not that she was in any condition to give or refuse it at that moment. He sucked at her full lower lip for a moment, and then released it, only to take advantage of her now open mouth and pull her hard into the kiss. His tongue explored without reservation, and she found herself responding, her own tongue joining his, desperate to learn the answer to the question that had plagued them both for so long. The world spun sharply around them.

A growl came from somewhere in his chest when he felt her react, and unthinking, he wrapped one arm tightly around her and lowered her back down to the couch, arranging her so that she lay against the pillows as he knelt on the floor, leaning over her and blocking out everything but him. He bent again to his delicious task, and found her mouth welcoming.

His kiss was hungrier this time, and he was only encouraged when her arms came up to pull him in closer. A creature of instinct, she was done with questions, everything else in her head replaced with a single word: _more_. They'd stepped over the line, and she'd stopped caring as he showed her the proof of his words. He'd done nothing but kiss her, but it had left her incoherent, all of her aching for more.

When his hand found its way down to caress her hip and then continued to slide over her thigh, she broke the kiss just enough for her gasp of need to split the air. She felt him react, his hands tightening on her, as he bit down on her bottom lip. The slight iron-laden taste of blood only stoked the already raging fire in them both, and he sucked her lip into his mouth, his hand finding her swollen breast, squeezing hard. His unsuspected passion made her feel like she was being ripped into pieces, waves of desire moving through her, and again, as he released her mouth to sink his teeth firmly into the sensitive spot beneath her jawbone, there seemed only one word to do it all justice.

"Marshall!" she keened, her body arching and desperate, nails biting into his shoulders and back.

The sound was like a slap to the face for her partner. Here he had his love, crying out for him in a way he could not have dreamed of in his most fevered visions, begging him to give her everything she'd denied them both all these years. And dear God, how he wanted to, wanted her, more now than he ever had. And had he been just another guy from just another bar, he'd have given her what they both wanted.

But as much as he desired her at that moment, he wasn't that guy. He was the one who loved and protected her, from both of them when necessary. And his name—laden with need—from her lips, quickly dispelled the madness that had taken him to the edge.

He couldn't do this to her. There was already going to be a hard reckoning for both of them for what he'd done. He might have thrown away their chance to be together, but he was not about to betray her in the way she feared most.

He started to pull back, but realized that she was not in a place to take such a withdrawal as anything but a rejection. Steeling himself, he took a different path. Slowly, his caresses became less passionate, his kisses and nuzzling more gentle as he strove to bring her back down to earth.

But Mary's body had other ideas, and her hips had already taken up a provocative grind he would have thought well beyond a woman in the last weeks of pregnancy, leaving him struggling to do the right thing. But his tenderness seemed no less exciting to her at this point than his most searing kisses. _Damn it_, he thought. This too he had fucked up because he could not keep control. Taking her into his arms, pulling her close, and cradling her against him, he whispered to her.

"I'm so sorry, Mary…so sorry. You have no idea how much I've wanted to do that, to kiss you and have you finally kiss me back. God..." he breathed, unable to stop himself for reliving it, just for a moment. "And I'd give anything to let it go on forever." He pulled away from her just enough to gaze down at her, the sorrow in his eyes palpable. "But I can't, not until I've told you the truth. I can't have any more lies between us anymore, not even those of omission. Not now, not ever." Once she knew the truth, he reasoned, there'd be no more temptation on either of their parts.

Mary wasn't sure whether to scream, cry, or tear Marshall limb from bloody limb. She'd never been so turned on in her life, never before actually crossed the threshold from wanting a man to needing him, and her partner's screeching halt might well move this into the category of justifiable homicide for her. Her response to him left her as ashamed as she'd ever felt sexually. She wasn't sure whether she was angrier at herself for having succumbed so easily to a kiss, or at him for holding out on her all these years. _Yeah, Shannon, because _he's_ the one that's been putting the brakes on_.

"Marshall…" her voice was as low and shaky as she'd feared it would be. "You better have a damned good reason for this," she spit out at him, unsure which _this_ she meant. She closed her eyes and tried to find enough control to keep at least some small measure of her dignity. Why hadn't someone warned her that pregnancy kicked a girl's sex-drive up a notch or two (or twenty)? One kiss and he'd left her feeling like a teenaged boy with a classic case of blue-balls. What kind of encyclopedia had he learned _that _from? _And_, said a quiet, troublesome voice, _how do I get him to do it again_?

It took her several deep breaths before she was able to pull herself together and up into a sitting position to finally face him. "Make this good, Marshal Mann," she told him, a wary expression clouding her face. "I'd hate to have to fill out all the paperwork that comes with shooting your partner."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: **Okay, since you were kind enough to not kill me for last week's slight detour, here's at least the beginning of the answer to the Abby question. Thanks for the encouraging reviews, although I welcome criticism as well. Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas in July challenge. And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe and Tilley_Girl for encouragement and beta-badness. Dedicated to my Marshall, just because...

Brownie points to anyone who catches the anagram (referring to a character NOT on IPS).

* * *

><p>Part 6<p>

He winced, visibly.

Under normal circumstances, she might not have noticed it. But after what had just happened between them, not only were Mary's senses a tad more acute, but she was watching him closely, thrown off balance and trying to reconstruct her usual defenses.

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, maybe not shoot you," she amended. "But if you don't just get whatever the hell this is out, you never know what I might resort to."

He glanced in the direction of the broken window and ran his hand through his hair. "Yes, it's surprising what people can be pushed to," he murmured, soft and sad.

She waited.

When he finally turned back around to face her, his expression almost broke her heart, simply because it looked as if his already had. Despite any lingering effects, she took his hand in hers and squeezed it in what she hoped was an encouraging way.

He smiled slightly, appreciative and oddly proud at her attempt to reach out to him. God, how he wished that he could have been the man she needed him to be.

"What I said before was true, Mare. My plan was to spend Christmas morning with her and then share Christmas dinner with you. I know that the two of you haven't always gotten along, but maybe my own selfishness, spending the best day of the year with my best friend and my girlfriend, made me, uh, _discount_ how strained things were." He shrugged, knowing that that desire was the least of his sins. "So when I brought it up to Abigail night before last, I didn't expect her to react as badly as she...well, I just should have anticipated it, all things considered."

* * *

><p>"Look, Marshall. I get that she's your partner and all, but seriously, honeybee, this is our first Christmas together. Hell, with any luck, we could spend Christmas in our new place, curled up by the fire and enjoying ourselves." Abigail looked up at him from where she sat on his couch, and reached out to stroke his knee. "That has to be a better way to spend our first Christmas than listening to your partner carrying on about how Christmas is just a way of draining people's pocketbooks, right?"<p>

"Christmas hasn't traditionally been a great day of the year for Mary," he told her, capturing her hand and pulling her close. "I'd like to see that change." He brought her hand to his lips, kissing it softly. "And I think you can help me," he told her, smiling.

She huffed slightly. "What about what_ I_ want for Christmas?"

"We'll still have half the day to ourselves, Abby," he reminded her.

"Half…I guess I should be happy to get even that much, huh?" She got up and went to the refrigerator to pour herself a glass of juice.

"Come on, Abby, be fair…"

She cut him off, spinning back to face him, her voice icy. "Fair? Is it fair to have to share my guy with another woman? To see him cater to her every whim? To have to constantly change how and what we do so as not to upset or annoy her? To see the man I love choose her, every time life gives him that choice? "

Marshall didn't try to pretend he didn't know what she was referring to. From the late nights he spent doing paperwork to try to cut down on Mary's burden, to the aborted romantic weekends out of town with his girlfriend because he couldn't bring himself to be too far away from his expectant partner, he'd done exactly what she'd accused him of. He'd always assured her that it was just because he was worried about how his partner was handling the pregnancy. But since he'd thrown himself onto Mary and not his girlfriend that day in the courthouse, he sensed a change in Abby's attitudes towards the female marshal. "Look, Abigail, I'm sorry about that. Really. I'm just used to watching my partner's back, and with her pregnant as well, it just…it was rote. I didn't have time to think."

"_Exactly_, Marshall. When push comes to shove, how we respond in a moment of crisis, in the moment when we're held over the volcano's edge, that shows us who we are…and what's important to us." She glared daggers at him. "And I think you made it clear when you chose her not once but _twice_ that day, that your partner is more important to you than I am."

He sighed, shaking his head. "It's not like that. I care about both of you, you know I do…" He reached his hand out for her.

"No, Marshall," she responded, her voice rising, "I don't. I know she's your partner, but I'm starting to think that's not all she is." She paused, her eyes narrowing. "How long were the two of you together?"

"She's been my partner for almost eight years."

"Don't play dumb, Marshall. You're not equipped." She stepped toward him, finally jabbing him in the chest with one perfectly manicured pink nail. "I mean, how long were you sleeping with her? Is that what all this is? Is that bastard she's carrying around _yours_?"

He stood there for a moment, shocked, finally shaking his head, more to clear out the cloud of confusion than to answer her. "What!" He didn't know if he was more disturbed by the fact that his girlfriend thought Mary and he had slept together, that she thought he'd try to keep such a secret from her, or that she'd called the blessing that his partner would soon bear, the child she'd come near to losing, a bastard.

"And don't pretend you don't know what I mean. For Christ's sake, you're like a devoted little puppy, the way you follow her around. How many times have you left our bed early so you could take her to doctors' appointments?" She moved in a touch closer. "All those times that they've called you the baby's father…and don't bother to deny it, I've been right there more than once to hear it myself…how many times have you corrected them? Why not? Because it's true?"

This was quickly getting out of control; he could see her anger growing with every word. Still, he couldn't let it pass entirely.

"No, Abby, the _child_ is not mine…Mary and I are just partners. There has never been anything between us." He tried to appealed to her. "If it were _my_ baby, do you really think I'd stand by and give her up for adoption?"

Abby snorted loudly. "I think, yours or not, you'd raise that baby on your own just to have a piece of _her_."

A piece of her. Of Mary. That stopped him cold.

But not Abby. Again, she jabbed him squarely in the chest. "Do it! Tell me it isn't true! Tell me that you're not in love with your bitch of a partner." Her voice broke, as tears began to form in her eyes. "Tell me!" the plea was plain in her tone.

But he was too wrapped up in the echo she'd set up in his head. She was right on all counts. He'd do anything to be able to call Mary's baby his own, biologically or in any other way, and for precisely that reason. Not only would he have the family, the child he'd always wanted, but she would be an unbreakable tie to the woman he loved.

_Loved_. Still _loved_. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

Abby stood before him, her hands now in small fists at her sides as she looked up at him, her lips quivering and the tears about to spill over. She seemed so tiny, suddenly, so vulnerable. Nothing like the strong, effervescent girl he knew. And all she needed was a word from him, a touch to let her know that she was wrong, that she was first in his heart.

But he now understood, with a pain in his chest unlike any he'd ever known, that he had nothing to give her.

He had cared for her, appreciated her easy-going strength and optimistic outlook, and respected her as a professional and person. She was everything he knew he should want. Everything deserving of his love.

But he had never loved her. Had carefully but unconsciously never let the words pass his lips, as though that made any kind of a difference. And yet still, looking back, he'd done everything else to convince her otherwise. All along the way, he'd acted as a man in love. It came so naturally to him. After all, he'd been in love with the same woman for eight years. He was good at it.

The horror of what he had done started to sink in. Hell. That was where his epiphany had left them—him and the sweet and trusting Abby.

If the look on his face hadn't been enough, his silence while caught up in his own thoughts spoke volumes.

"God…" she whispered, reading her answer in his expression. She turned away, her arms coming up to wrap around herself protectively. "It's really true, isn't it, honeybee?" He could hear such pain in her voice, pain he knew only too well himself. He wanted to take her up in his arms, wanted to make things right, but he now knew with certainty that it would have been a lie. As it had all been a lie from the beginning.

His phone rang.

* * *

><p>Three minutes later, he was on the road, speeding through the night to the home of Rocky Mayden, one of his witnesses. When he'd seen Rocky's name on his caller ID, he was tempted to ignore the call entirely. After all, Rocky was precisely the kind of twitchy, whining, attention-seeking witness that his partner frequently complained about—the kind who'd sell out his mother for half a carton of cigarettes—which is part of why he'd agreed to take Rocky off Mary's plate when he was first placed in the program six years ago. It would spare a lot of suffering on both sides, Marshall'd decided.<p>

But that meant the marshal was now stuck with him and his frequent calls. At least four times a year, Rocky would call up insisting that _they_'d found him. The truth was that most of those gunning for him had, after walking on a procedural technicality, perished in a meth lab explosion two years ago. He was probably in less danger than any other witness Mary and he had…not that you could tell from the recurrent phone calls.

Still, there was always the chance that one of the two remaining members of the group might have found him. Being a marshal in WitSec meant he could never ignore the possibility. So when Rocky called to tell him that there was someone suspicious on his property, Marshall really had no choice.

He'd apologized profusely to Abby, relaying what Rocky had told him, telling her he'd be back as soon as he could and they'd talk more then. She'd barely said a word, mostly nodding, one hand pressed over her mouth as though she was trying to keep herself from speaking. He felt horrible leaving her alone at such a moment, but they both understood that this was his job and not open to negotiation.

He pulled up to Rocky's house and immediately noticed that not only was it dark inside, but so was every house on the street for three blocks in any direction. Great, he thought, a power outage on top of everything. Gun drawn, he quickly and quietly made his way to the front door, texting Rocky that he was there and to let him in. The door opened just a crack.

A sliver of Rocky's weaselly but terrified face appeared in the doorway. Marshall wasted no time, pushing the door open and shushing Rocky's exclamation, shutting the door securely behind them both.

"Where is he?" he demanded in a low tone, backing Rocky against a wall.

Moon-faced, slight, and anxiety-ridden, Rocky stood there, ringing his hands. "He was out back…after the lights went out, I thought, you know, they'd finally caught up with me. I been keeping a close eye on what was going on out there since then." As if to make his point, he moved the curtain aside on the window to his left, and took a nervous look outside. "I saw the guy over behind Carl's house," he pointed out the window at his neighbor's house, "and then it looked like he was coming over here. I called you as soon as I saw him headed this way. He's still back there. I know it." He leaned forward to whisper to the marshal conspiratorially. "Listen, you can hear him. I think he's trying to get in the back door."

Marshall did hear something…some kind of activity near the back door in the kitchen. He edged along the wall of the front room, pulling Rocky along with him. As they passed the bathroom, Marshall pushed his witness inside and told him to lock the door and not come out. Rocky started to object, but a single look from Marshall silenced him. Marshall heard the lock slide into place behind Rocky.

Quickly, he got to the back door. The sounds had stopped, and Marshall did a fast visual sweep of the other doors and windows in his line of vision, momentarily blinded by bright headlights that briefly shown through the sheer curtains on the windows in the living room.

With a quick check out the decorative glass of the back door, he saw no evidence of the intruder, and silently unlocked the door. He opened it just enough to get a look around the right side of the house, confirmed that there was no longer anyone there, and stepped out into the moonlight.

He heard the receding footsteps coming from around the left side of the house, and moved quickly but cautiously in pursuit, gun at the ready. He rounded the corner just in time to see the man stop short about forty feet in front of him. Then, two things registered in the same instant. The first was a flash of movement in front of the man. The second was the logo on the man's workshirt: New Mexico Gas Company.

He had lowered his weapon and started to close the distance when a shot rang out. The man in front of him jerked sharply and then crumpled to the ground, revealing the slim silhouette of Detective Abigail Chaffee, gun still targeted at the space the injured man used to occupy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes: **Thanks for the encouraging reviews, they really do keep someone writing. So I appreciate each and every one. Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas in July challenge. And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Thanks to Ares' Warrior Babe and Tilley_Girl for encouragement and beta-badness. Dedicated to my Marshall, who gives me good ideas and looks great in boots.

* * *

><p>Marshall brought his gun back up, taking aim at his girlfriend as he advanced on her. "Abby, put the gun down!" he demanded in the firm, controlled voice he used with perps.<p>

She just stood there, unmoving, apparently unaware of him.

Once he was within a few feet of Abby and the victim, Marshall could tell by looking at her that she was in shock. "Abby, I need you to give me the gun…"

Still no response.

Calmly, slowly, he reached out, covered her gun with his own hand and gently pushed downward until it was pointed at the ground, rather than him. She looked up at him, her eyes large and confused.

"Marshall?" Her voice had a childlike quality to it.

"It's okay, Abby," he said, carefully pulling the gun out of her hand. As soon as she was disarmed, he turned his attention to the man lying at his feet. He gave a brief thought to having Abby call 911, but as she fell down to her knees in the grass next to them, he knew she was in no state for even that simple task.

The man lay sprawled where he fell, his left shoulder a bloody mess. But his eyes were open, and he was fumbling with something small and white in his right hand. "Hold still," Marshall instructed him, applying pressure to the wound and pulling out his cell to quickly call for an ambulance. The guy was hurt, but the lawman doubted he was in any danger of dying. The bullet had gone clean through, he quickly ascertained. The slug was clearly visible in the cracked siding of the house, just next to the big picture window—a window which perfectly framed Rocky Mayden peering out at the scene on his lawn.

_Fuck_. Marshall tucked that thought away and turned his attention back to the victim. He was clearly unarmed, nothing but a small 4" x 8" black box-shaped tool or meter of some sort lying next to him. He continued to struggle with whatever was in his right hand, and Marshall cautioned him again to stay still so he could manage the bleeding, assuring him that help was on the way.

Marshall carefully pried the man's right hand open and retrieved the laminated card he was holding—the one which identified the bleeding man as Jacob Reese, an inspector for the local gas company. It was obvious that he'd been trying to identify himself when he was shot. _God, no…_

One hand pressing firmly on the man's shoulder, Marshall slightly angled to face Abby.

"Abigail?" No response. She just knelt there in the grass, slowly rocking back and forth, her eyes fixed on her own hands clasped between her knees.

"Abigail!" He reached out, grabbed her shoulder with his free hand, and shook hard. He needed her to hear him. When she didn't answer, he shook her harder, his own panic starting to set in.

She glanced up at him as though he were not real, at first. "Abby, I need you to listen to me," he told her, grabbing her chin in his hand and making her look directly at him.

"Marshall…it was dark….I thought you…" she began, unfocused.

"Shut up, Abby. I need you to listen," he responded sharply. "Not another word. You have to promise me you won't talk to anyone until I can get your union lawyer down here."

"But, I…" she started to respond, but he cut her off.

"Not another word, Abby!" He barked at her. "This man works for the utility company. He will live, but I need to help him. And I need you to help yourself by staying quiet until I can get him in an ambulance and out of here."

She didn't respond. He tightened his grip on her chin, pulling her a little closer. "Please, Abby. Please," he modulated his tone, trying to find some way, any way, to cut through her haze, "Promise me you won't talk to anyone but me for now." It was a long moment before he felt her try to nod her head. He released the breath he'd been holding.

"Good girl," he told her before checking on Jacob again. The bleeding had already slowed; it looked as though she'd missed any major arteries. Still, the blood loss left him weak and dazed. Both victim and assailant were obviously suffering from shock. Marshall shrugged out of his coat, swapping hands on the wound to wrangle it off and then spread it over the man to try to keep him from losing too much warmth in the chilly December air. He had just reached over and pulled Abby toward him, wrapping his free arm tightly about her, rubbing her shoulder and arm briskly to try to keep her warm, when Rocky came around the corner of the house.

Already taxed, Marshall had little patience for Rocky.

"Is it Kyle?" Rocky asked, and then went on before Marshall could get a word out. "I always knew it was Kyle who would find me." He laughed, the sound high-pitched and artificial. "But she really got the drop on him, huh, motherfucker? Never stood a chance!" He grinned down at the prone man in the darkness "Well, fuck you, Kyle…game over!"

Marshall looked up at Rocky, wanting to swat him like the bug he was. But fate denied him the opportunity and he somehow kept his voice controlled. "It's not Kyle, Rocky. It's your meter man." He glanced over at his girlfriend, silently praying she would pull herself together so she could help in the damage-control, but it was obvious that tonight's events…all of them…were too much for her. He ignored the twisting of his own gut—_there'd be time enough for guilt later_, he told himself. Right now, he needed to get things in order.

"Well, why the hell'd she shoot my meter man?" Rocky leaned against the house, obviously unperturbed by the scene before him. He'd seen worse in his own kitchen, not to mention the dozen or so other occasions when his old crew had needed to discipline one of the up-and-comers in their territory. "And how do you know Kyle isn't here? That sneaky bastard could…"

"Rocky, I need you to shut up and listen to me. You need to remember why you're here and how much of a problem it might be for you to be standing here when the police arrive." Rocky withered slightly under Marshall's unflinching glare; he pushed himself away from the house and shuffled uncertainly. "So I want you to go into the house. If the police decide to talk to you, you answer their questions truthfully, but that's it. None of your long-winded explanations, stories of the good-old-days, or flights of limited fancy. Just give them the facts and no more." His eyes narrowed. "You got me?"

It wasn't the first time he'd had to give this particular lecture to this particular witness. Rocky's past, even after entering WitSec, had been fairly spotty. Hopefully, Rocky would assume that Marshall's warning was one of the standard variety. Abby's future depended on it.

"Okay, okay…I'm going," Rocky replied, starting to move toward the front door. "Just keep that girl away from me. I got enough trouble…don't want her taking me out too," he told the marshal before disappearing around the corner and into the house.

_Shit, shit, shit…_

The sound of a siren in the distance cut through his thoughts, and he leaned down to reassure the fallen man that help was imminent.

* * *

><p>"I told you Rocky was trouble," Mary opined, more out of habit and to break the silence than anything else.<p>

Marshall nodded and moved up to sit next to her on the couch.

"So I'm guessing that Abby is on administrative leave," she continued. She'd fired her gun often and accurately enough to know the routine by heart. An inquiry, a finding, visits to the shrink…

Of course, Mary had never shot an innocent man while off-duty. She knew what Marshall could not bring himself to say: Abby was very likely facing the end of her career, if not actual felony charges. Wedged between Texas and Arizona, New Mexico was generally seen by outsiders as the Old West—untamed and not particularly civilized. The truth was that modern-day Albuquerque had more bikes than horses and that wine-tasting tours began to edge out gunfights sometime in the late 80's. A LEO who had gunned down a gas company employee going about his daily duties was not likely to evoke much sympathy from the community or mercy from Internal Affairs. Unless Abby was very lucky _and_ had a very good lawyer, she was in real trouble.

No wonder her partner was a wreck. Hell, even she would be pretty fucked up with guilt herself if the situation was reversed. She squeezed his hand again and moved closer, her head on his shoulder.

"How did she find out where you were going?"

He sat rigidly, unwilling to allow himself to reciprocate her touch. Before, he could put it out of his mind for a time and focus on trying to provide his partner with a decent holiday experience, but forced to recount what he'd done, his unworthiness sat heavy on him. He leaned back and answered almost robotically.

"She followed me. I should have noticed, but I was too…" he struggled to find the right word or phrase. _Self-absorbed? devastated by the truth? shattered at having hurt someone I cared for? pissed at Rocky for calling me away at the worst possible moment?_ All true and yet they still didn't sum up the swirl of emotions that had kept his eyes only on the road in front of him that night.

"Marshall, you can't blame yourself for this. Abby's a big girl, and responsible for her own actions." But the words rang false even in her own ears. They were, of course, factual. He did not put car keys or the gun in Abby's hand. But that's not how people worked…not what they believed about their own effect on the universe around them. She knew there was literally nothing she could say to convince him, but the words were already out there.

His bitter laugh stung. "I might as well have, considering how I treated her, Mare."

"You treated her really well. You might as well have been Prince Charming as far as that girl was concerned."

"Oh, really?" his voice was thick with irony. "I lied to her. I tricked her. I not only let her believe I loved her, I actually escalated the relationship more than once. Hell, I was the one who suggested moving in together." His eyes remained fixed on the wall opposite them. "And that's not even the worst part…"

Mary just waited, unsure what to say. She knew her partner well enough to know that he could never intentionally do any of the things he was browbeating himself over. But he was also a man who did little without reflection—to have done these things even unconsciously would weigh heavier on him than anyone she had ever known.

He pulled away from her, retreating to the opposite side of the couch. "The worst part is that I picked _her_. There are just over a quarter-million women living in Albuquerque, and I chose someone so vulnerable, so trusting and open, someone looking for a lifetime commitment and who deserves every happiness in the world—and I destroyed her life out of my own frustration and selfishness."

Mary grunted in her characteristic way. "Marshall, there's nothing selfish about wanting to have someone in your life." The word was out before she realized what she said. It was the wrong damned word, one that distilled everything between her and her partner down to a fine, sharp, killing point.

_Maybe instead of just _anyone_, you should be looking for s_omeone_. _Someone_ who challenges you. Who calls you on your BS and gets in your face and makes you think._

As carelessly as she had worked to make her response appear that fateful day, she remembered every word, his tone laden with the love he felt for her and his invitation for her to walk with him through the door and experience something she'd never felt. And she'd brushed it aside, treated it like it was nothing. And then tried to prove to herself that he was wrong. Faber had been an epic mistake, not just in himself, but because since her weekend in Mexico, nothing had ever been completely right between her and Marshall.

He just looked at her, the word cutting as sharply into him as it had her. "That's just it, Mare. She wasn't _someone_. She is a sweet, kind, smart woman, but she isn't _someone_ to me. She could have been…was…_anyone_." He measured her for a moment before plunging on. "I treated her like you have all those cowboys…as though she could be happy with less than half of the person she shared her bed with."

Mary started to object, but he cut her off. "But what I did was far worse than what you did to any of those men who thought or hoped their time with you could turn into something more." He got up and began to pick up shards of the broken window, carefully placing them on the mantel, needing something to do with his hands.

"Yes, Mare, I did to her what you had done with all those cowboys." He scanned the floor for more of the pieces, unable to look at her. "But the difference is that it never really occurred to you that they could be hurt…you never made promises you couldn't keep, and you never expected any of them to feel anything more for you than what you felt for them…which was little to nothing." He finished his task and steeled himself to face her. "And I'm not condemning you. I never have."

She took in his words and could not bring herself to disagree. Even his lecture to her that day hadn't been about what she was doing wrong, but an offer to try to show her what happiness looked like. She nodded.

"There has always been a weird kind of innocence to you, Mary. And part of that is your insistence that no one could care about you more than you did them."

"But…" she began, but he again cut her off.

"Please, Mary. We're telling the truth here, so let's tell all of it." He crouched in front of her so they were eye-to-eye. "How many times have you tried to convince yourself that I don't really love you? That I'm just confused or infatuated or something equally ridiculous?" He gave her a sad half-smile. "Well, I'm calling you on your BS. How I feel is how I feel and you can't wish it away. Nor can I. But I tried. That's why Abby is in the trouble she is."

"Because while you never understood the hurt you could cause, I have lived with it daily for years. And when you made it clear by choosing Faber that you were never going to give us a chance, I did to her what you did to me…knowing how much it hurt. You did it to protect yourself, and that's who you are. I knew what I was getting into from the first…but she didn't, couldn't have known that I was just lonely, hurt, feeling sorry for myself." He rose again, turning to gaze into the fire before going on.

"I attached myself to Abby knowing how I felt about you, knowing how much it hurt to love someone and not be loved back. But the very worst part is, what happened between you and I, I had my eyes open the whole time. Whatever you have felt for me, you have never led me on, never intentionally played with my emotions. The damage done was what I did to myself, continuing to want you beyond all reasonable hope. "

"But with Abby, I gave her not just reason for hope, but built a foundation for a future that could never happen. I think I've always known you were never going to let me in, but she…she did nothing worse, nothing more misguided, than believing me."

Mary had had enough. "For Christ's sake, Marshall, I refuse to believe that you did any of this on purpose. Abby's right. Your "bitch of a partner" treated you like shit, and you decided she wasn't worth it anymore and wanted to find a girl who could give you what she couldn't or wouldn't." Again Mary surprised herself a bit in acknowledging that even she didn't know which it was anymore.

"So you went out and found a nice girl and tried to make a go of it with her…my understanding is that that's how it works. You're hating yourself because things didn't work out? Seriously, Marshall, you didn't mean to hurt her." She felt stupid having to repeat the obvious.

"I didn't care enough to stop myself from doing it, either, Mare. I let myself ignore that little voice inside, the one that told me I wasn't over you, just because I was so convinced that I could find what I wanted with a woman who could…" his voice trailed off, but she knew what he left unsaid.

"With a woman who would give you a chance." She concluded for him, without rancor. Now it was her turn to smile sadly. "I'm sorry I never gave you that chance, Marshall. I really am. You were right that day in the office, and rather than face it, I ran off with the worst person possible. He's not a tenth the man you are, and I knew it even then. But then, that's kinda the point. Marshall, you deserve someone far better than me…"

"You're all I've wanted for so long," he replied quietly.

The flutter in her chest was undeniable. "And I'm selfish for wanting you to stay with me, to be my partner, when I didn't even have the guts to tell you the truth." She swallowed hard, and took a deep breath. "I couldn't risk losing you, all right? Couldn't risk fucking up my relationship with the only person who makes me feel like I matter." She ran her hand over her belly. "The only person who could care about me and stand beside me despite all the mistakes I've made. You deserved better _from_ me, after all we've been through, and all I've put you through, Marshall."

He gazed at her silently for a few moments, and she could read the love there. But it was almost obscured by something else, something darker.

"But now it's too late."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes: **A thousand apologies for the long hiatus. Part of the LJ Mary_Marshall group's 12 Days of Christmas in July challenge. And I own neither IPS nor any of the films I'm referencing directly or indirectly. It's called "Fair Use," and it's a wonderful thing. Mild spoilers for season 4's larger story arcs. Thanks to Tilley_Girl's for the nudge, the encouragement, and beta-badness. Dedicated to Chris, who, like Marshall, tries to make the world better for the woman he loves.

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><p>His words, so soft and tragic, reverberated through her like the deep tolling of a somber church bell.<p>

How had it gone so fucking sideways? she wondered. But the way his words hit her made it all so terribly clear: she was as much, if not more, responsible for what had happened to Abby, to him, and now—painfully obvious—to herself. She had caused this from beginning to end. And she had damaged her best friend, the man who loved her above all else, possibly permanently.

Because despite her scathing insistence on the absolute truth in her dealings with the world, she'd been lying about something so basic, so central, for years. Marshall had finally found a way to open the door. But it was not, she now saw, a door _between_ the two of them. Instead, he'd stumbled upon the key that fit the lock of something she'd kept hidden from both of them.

_I would say it's the ideal goal of someone who has somehow managed to protect the purest part of her heart. Which does not seem insane to anyone who really knows you._

"Which would be you…and you," she told him that day. And they'd both been more right than they could possibly have known. Only he could ever have hoped to have found that part, and now she finally saw the truth. How could she have been so stupid, such a liar, for _so_ long?

She held her hand out to him, and the gesture brought him to her, an autonomic response that short-circuited his conscious mind. He was sitting beside her before he had time to remember that this was the last place he should be.

"Why?" She asked simply, meeting his gaze with the most guileless look—the _only_ guileless look—he'd ever seen on her face. "Please…"

He sighed. He didn't understand why she was making him say it. If he didn't know her so well, he'd think this was an attempt to punish him even more for his sins. But her expression made it clear to him that this was something different.

He slid off the couch to kneel on the floor in front of her, resting his forehead on her knee. He remained still for a long moment, trying to pull himself together emotionally. If this is what she needed, he'd find a way to make it through. He finally took a deep breath and looked up at her.

"Mary, I've been your friend and partner for eight years. When we met, it didn't take long for me to understand so much of why you are the way you are. Because in that time, I've seen what you've had to face in life, from your father walking out, to your mother and sister creating emotional and financial havoc virtually every time they come into contact with you, to the men in your life who can't be bothered to try to understand who and what you really are."

"A bit of conceit on my part," he continued, a wry and sad half-smile formed on his face, "but I set out to prove to you early on that that's not what the world is, or at least it's not what it can be. I wanted you to know that there was happiness, friendship, and love—just waiting for you."

"It wasn't easy, back then." And now it was her turn to smile, remembering a hundred horrible, snarky, bitchy things she'd done—how he'd ever forgiven her for the time she'd left him handcuffed to the plumbing in that bathhouse in the Castro, she's never understand, especially considering what had happened...

"But the more time I spent with you, the more I understood. And the more I understood, the more I came to feel more than a partner is supposed to for you. What started out as the same kind of lesson I might try to teach one of my witnesses turned into something very different."

"I fell in love with you, bit by bit. Your strength, your dedication, your sarcasm, the way you want the best for people, sometimes even while you're telling them what's worst about them. And what started out as a way to help you understand the emotional aspect of WitSec became something far more selfish: I wanted you to understand not just that the world was _not_ the snakepit you believed it to be…I wanted you to know, to really understand, that you could trust me. And I hoped that one day, you'd learn that it was safe…that _I_ was safe…and that you could let yourself love me."

"So I strove, everyday, to be a man worthy of your trust and your love. And I thought that, in doing so, that I had actually become that man, assuring myself that I was not even remotely in the same class as those who had hurt you so badly. My own special brand of hubris."

He looked past her now, unable, even in his contrition, to meet her eyes. "But the truth is that I was exactly the same as the rest of them. So focused on what _I_ wanted, that I forgot about everything else. Every_one_ else."

Mary watched as his expression darkened. "If I had been thinking about someone other than myself, I'd have realized, before I opened my mouth, that that little speech that day in the office would have had the opposite effect on you. I have always known that pushing you one way makes you want to run the other. But I had grown impatient, and frankly, I didn't think I could take you coming to work one more day with the smell of another man on you. When you talked about picking up some guy to throw down with, I…" his eyes went hard. "I forgot how little those men meant to you because of how much they meant to _me_."

"And not out of some puritanical issue with casual sex." His gaze returned to her, as if to plead his sincerity. "It's just that I know that every time you're with one of them, he confirms your view of the world, of sex, and of relationships. And takes you further away from me and what I want…wanted," he corrected, the twisting knife in his chest reflected in his face, "for us. It was selfish and short-sighted and made things worse." She started to object, but he silenced her with a look. "You'd never have slept with Faber if I hadn't said what I said. Hell, you probably wouldn't be pregnant if I hadn't started dating Abigail."

Again, she opened her mouth to object, but this time she stopped herself. He was definitely right about Faber, and if push came to shove, he was right about Mark. Just not in the way he meant it. That the conversation over dinner with him, Abby, and Mark had been partly responsible for her screwing her ex-husband later that night. Their discussion about commitment was what did it: now, looking back, she knew she'd slept with Mark precisely out of her desire to "jump to the truth"—even though she'd already known what that truth was. Sometimes, she'd long ago learned, sleeping with a guy was the quickest way to get rid of him. Assuming you don't get pregnant, of course.

Marshall looked hurt at her silence, but continued. "And then there's Abby. Poor, sweet, naïve Abby." He covered his pained expression with both hands for a moment, before sliding his fingers through his hair and rocking back on his heels. "I was so hurt and frustrated and lonely, she felt like a lifeline. Something normal. Simple. So I took it without thinking. Without stopping to realize the impact of what I was doing. And now not only have I destroyed her life, but in doing so, finally affirmed to you, in no uncertain terms, that I'm no better than the rest of them. No better than your mother drinking as you girls suffered. No better than Brandi almost ending your career with that drug deal. No better than your father who walked out without considering what effect that would have on his daughter for the rest of her life."

"I've failed Abby and you and myself." He rose and looked down at her, his face a mask of sorrow. "And proved to you that the world _is_ no better than you've always believed it to be. I've ruined it all…" His words hung there, and it wasn't until he closed his eyes and took a deep breath that he could will himself to action. There was, at least, the tiniest bit of comfort in the fact that it was finally over, out in the open, and done with, he tried to console himself. Perhaps the coming year would allow him and Mary to piece together, from the fallout of his failure, a real friendship without ulterior motives and the constant thinly fed hope that he'd harbored in his heart.

He turned and glanced at the window. "I'll get that fixed tomorrow, Mare. It was as inexcusable as everything else I've done." He smiled wanly at her, painfully aware of how strained his expression probably looked to her. "I will find a way to make it up to you." Again, he left her to interpret the word "it" as she liked. There was too much to make amends for right now—he simply couldn't get his head around all of it.

He needed to get away, and he needed a drink. Badly.

He leaned down, lightly kissed the top of her head, and whispered, "I'm so sorry," before turning and walking to the door. The doorknob was cool to the touch as he turned it.

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><p>Please, please, please review. I know it's been a while, but the motivation of reviews would be SO welcome.<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

Sorry for the posting snafu. Chapter 8 is the NEW one, not chapter 9.


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